


Ash

by lookninjas



Series: Children's Work [10]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, American Politics, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 10:08:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9118984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookninjas/pseuds/lookninjas
Summary: He didn't have a lot of friends, but he had her.  Now she's gone, at the worst possible moment, and someone will have to pick up the pieces in her absence.  It isn't really a surprise that Armitage is the one to volunteer.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't want to write a response to Carrie dying. In the end, I couldn't not write a response to Carrie dying.

It’d be better if the sky were blue-black, with the stars glinting like chips of ice set in, but they’re in fucking Detroit. So the sky glows, that strange apocalyptic grey of the Detroit sky at night, in winter, with all the lights reflecting off the trapped snow still frozen in the clouds, waiting to fall. That light always made Brendol think of the world ending.

Come to think of it, that’s appropriate too, in its own way.

There’s no stone yet, of course. There will be later. Right now it’s just the dirt, the finest layer of snow scattered on top of it. Snow like ash. He wonders they didn’t burn her. It seems more her style, cremation, but he wasn’t privy to the will. If there was one. Clearly she wasn’t expecting this.

But does anyone.

Christ knows he wasn’t.

It feels strange, standing over her like this, looming this way. The grave is too new for him to sit, so he hunkers down instead. Digs into the pocket of his coat, the heavy black one he wore to the funeral. Pulls out a pack of Camel Lights.

How long since he last had one? Six years now? Maybe seven. His hand still knows the feel of cellophane and cardboard. He taps the box, top down, across his gloved palm – three, four, five times. Turns it right side up, catches the little tab in his fingers, pulls it around until it reaches its natural end. Peels the cellophane off the lid, flips the pack open. Turns the first cigarette upside down. Pulls out the second, puts it between his lips.

It tastes like fucking bleach, and he nearly coughs. But she wouldn’t, so he forces the urge back down. Always a talent of his, forcing things down. He’s lost some of that, lately. Not even lately, really. Sixteen years ago. When they became friends.

That’s the word that makes his eyes sting. Friends. He’d never really had many of them – Armitage comes by it honestly – but she was one of them. The best of them, perhaps. Certainly the most trusted. And now, gone. Just like that.

He shudders against the cold, blinks a few times, takes another drag. This time it doesn’t taste like much of anything.

Footsteps behind him. He doesn’t straighten or hide his cigarette or attempt to preserve his dignity in any way. He likes to think she’d be proud of him for that.

Possibly she’d just be disturbed at this change in his patterns. Hard to say.

“Tell me you’ve got another of those,” Armitage says, settling on the ground next to him, completely unconcerned about his suit. Of course, Armitage has sat himself in worse places. Has endured worse than a little cold ground. 

Brendol sighs and lets himself sink fully to the ground. He passes his cigarette to his son, fumbles in his pocket for the pack while Armitage takes his first drag, makes an odd choking noise, a puff of smoke coming out of his nose before the longer, more graceful plume of his exhalation. 

“Nobody sent me to find you,” he adds, as Brendol lights another cigarette for himself. “In case you were worried. I just had a question. For her.”

He’s been expecting this for a few days now, since they first allowed themselves to entertain the notion that there wouldn’t be a last-minute reprieve. That this, like so many other things, was heading towards the worst of all endings. There’s still a terrible, incongruous swelling of warmth in his chest now that the decision has actually been made. “I thought you might,” he says. And then, though it’s thoroughly unnecessary, he adds, “I can’t say she’d be delighted that it’s come to this, but she’d approve of you. You know she would.”

“I hope so,” Armitage says, faintly. More doubtful than he has any right to be. Even if Leia hadn’t loved him, which she did, there isn’t anyone Brendol can think of who shares her fight in quite the same way. If he hadn’t known better, he might have even thought they were family.

They were family, in the end. Which is probably why this is so hard.

He wraps an arm around Armitage, and Armitage slouches into him. “She’d approve of you,” he says again, more firmly this time. “And you’ll do right by her. There isn’t anyone I would trust more with this, Armitage. Not even myself.”

A shuddering exhale, and Armitage shrinks into him further. He’s rarely affectionate like this, but Brendol supposes it’s only to be expected. Certainly he’s not inclined to complain. “I know it’s not ideal,” he says. “I know it’s not what you would have wanted, either. But it’s the right thing to do. And I am proud of you, Armitage. I’m very proud.” 

Armitage tucks his face into Brendol’s shoulder, and Brendol casts his half-smoked cigarette aside in favor of running fingers through his son’s soft hair. “I’m very proud,” he says, again. “She would be, too. She was always very proud of you.”

There isn’t a reply. Just Armitage’s arms around his waist, a little sniffling. Tears, probably, although Brendol is too bundled up against the December cold to feel it.

He strokes his fingers through Armitage’s hair and finds himself wondering, absently, if Han is doing this for Ben somewhere. He should check in on them again, sometime soon. Make sure they’re all right. They’ll need looking after, now that she’s gone. 

But not now.

“She loved you and she was very proud of you,” he says, and Armitage clutches him tighter. “And you’ll do right by her. I know you will.”

Armitage doesn’t pull back or let go, and Brendol finally gives up on talking.

They sit there, in silence, under the apocalyptic sky, and the cold seeps into them slowly until the only warm places are the places where they’re touching.

**Author's Note:**

> (For the curious, since this is left rather vague -- in my mind, Leia finally wins her seat on the House of Representatives in the 2016 elections. It was, I guess, my own little way of injecting some hope in there. But with Carrie gone, I find it hard to imagine another universe where she continues on. Which means someone would have to take her place. Hux, at least, would fight every bit as hard as she would. Even if it's a daily struggle for him to not just rip Trump's throat out with his teeth and have done with.)


End file.
